We had an uncommonly warm, dry autumn last year, so much so that until late October we didn’t need to wear jackets or hats on our frequent walks to the supermarket. Glorious weather. During those Indian-summer days, on the lane we found raccoon upchuck that Anna determined was composed mostly of fermented apples from our neighboring orchard, and the intact body of an 18-inch garter snake that Anna deduced had died on impact when dropped from a considerable height by a raptor, most likely our resident hawk.
We also found the mostly eaten carcass and gnawed skeleton of a deer in the then-vacant lot at the head of our lane, which may have stumbled in and died there after getting hit by a vehicle on U.S. Route 209, a heavily trafficked two-lane blacktop to which our lane connects.
On the whole, our sightings of local fauna have decreased considerably over the past several years. The herd of roughly ten white-tailed deer that previously crossed our property on a regular basis disappeared last year, perhaps because construction work on the Lexington Center for Recovery, the new methadone clinic across the lane, disturbed them with its hustle and bustle and disrupted their usual route with their newly installed privacy fence.
However, from early last spring until now we have periodically sighted a small new herd — a young buck and two does — traversing our grounds. Taking advantage of undisputed territory, I suppose. We caught only glimpses of them over the winter, but their tracks reappeared regularly in the snow, so they’ve definitely incorporated our acre into their defined territory. Maybe they’ll show up soon with a spring crop of fawns in tow.
Keeping the Home Fires Burning
As a result of the clement fall weather, we had our baseboard heat turned off until late October. However, once we got it going we discovered that our 12-year-old propane boiler — combination baseboard heating and on-demand hot water for the north end of the house — had reached EOL status and begun giving up the ghost in the machine, complete with scary death rattles. It’s had problems ever since we bought the house, so, like Hemingway’s bankrupt protagonist, it failed “gradually and then suddenly.”
Fortunately, we caught this before the cold weather set in. It cost us an unexpected pretty penny, but we swiftly replaced it with a state-of-the-art Navien unit — roughly a third of the size of its Triangle Prestige predecessor but far more energy-efficient and fuel-saving, with a greater capacity to generate hot water for household use. It ran like a charm all winter.
For which we give thanks, because this winter went long, and hard. We didn’t need a consultation with Chuck Lamberti, the prognosticating rodent who inhabits our property, to expect six more weeks of it on Groundhog Day. We had multiple snow days starting from Christmas week, and snow/ice on the ground until early March — almost three solid months of it. Fortunately, our neighbors, a family just to the south on the lane, have to clear it with snow blower and shovels, so we get the benefit of their labors.
The Swiss architect Le Corbusier defined a private home as a “machine for living.” So this winter, just now ebbing, put our “machine for living” to the test. Which it passed with flying colors.
The various insulation and weatherization upgrades we achieved in spring 2024 definitely made the place warmer and draft-free. Neither Anna nor I thrive with the thermostat set at the recommended 68F daytimes and lower at night, so I cranked it up several degrees above that. As a result, I could walk around or sit at my desk comfortably while layered in long johns, shirt, sweater, and jeans. Of course this meant that we burned more fuel, but it was worth it. When the heating season ends we’ll still have some leftovers from our 2025 pre-buy. Helpful when we go to pre-buy next year’s fuel, at prices inflated by Trump’s mideast “excursion.”
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T-Boned in Kingston
In another of life’s little adventures, in mid-January we found ourselves involved in a minor car accident. In a long line of vehicles crawling across an intersection in the nearby city of Kingston, we got T-boned by a black Kia that ran the red light there. I use the word “ran” advisedly, since, like us, the Kia also traveled at something like 3 mph. A slo-mo event that didn’t even shake us up — more a WTF moment.
However, it took an couple of hours to sort it out with the other driver, police, ambulance, fire department. We were unhurt, our car still drivable, but both passenger-side doors chewed up badly enough that our insurance company, State Farm, eventually declared it totaled.
They declared the other driver responsible, gave us fair market value for our 2016 Subaru Outback, and authorized a loaner for several weeks. However, sorting out the inspections and paperwork, waiting for the payout, and finding a replacement took much longer than that. So, for about a month during the deep winter, we had no transportation available. Made us realize how dependent we are on our vehicle, even though we don’t drive much, or very far.
Anyhow, now we have a 2021 Subaru Forester — slightly shorter, slightly taller. We gave thought to switching to an electric model (Subaru makes several), but didn’t; I’ve never driven one, and wasn’t ready for such a dramatic change. That was before Trump started his lunatic war with Iran, considerably upping the price of gas. In retrospect, I wish I’d considered that alternative more seriously.
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Our Corporate Neighbors
When I last wrote about it, in March 2024, our new neighbor across the lane, the first Ulster County branch of the Lexington Center for Recovery, had yet to go into operation, due to several pending permits and certifications. Last fall this opioid-addiction treatment facility (commonly referred to as a methadone clinic) opened its doors for business, without fanfare. It occupies the lower level of what served formerly as the offices of a family medical practice group. (The upper level remains the headquarters of HowGood, “a SaaS data platform with the world’s largest database on food and personal care product sustainability.”)
The clinic opens daily at 6 a.m., so clients begin arriving (by car) shortly before that. By noon there’s hardly any activity there. I gather they’re gradually building their clientele for this location, so that traffic may increase over time. On the other hand, standard methadone treatment, which used to require daily dosages consumed on the spot in full view of a licensed practitioner, has evolved. Nowadays protocols allow stabilized patients up to 28 unsupervised take-home doses, which means they might visit the clinic just once a month.
My reservations notwithstanding, so far this dispensary’s operations have not troubled the waters in any way: no noise or disruptions, no visible presence of its clients in the neighborhood. That may change as the weather gets warmer, and I still find its location in a secluded section of a small town peculiar and inappropriate. But if my publicly expressed concerns prove unfounded I’ll owe them a public apology, which I’ll deliver.
•
Meanwhile, we have a new corporate neighbor, two lots to the north on the lane, right off Route 209. Ulster Savings Bank — a branch of which currently occupies a small building on the grounds of the Mytown Marketplace mini-mall just north of us — has finally broken ground for its new location on a previously vacant lot between Lamberti Lane and the Mytown complex.
This lot has sat vacant for years, even decades, as various plans for it have come and gone with an assortment of previous owners — including Sicilian mafioso Joseph Lamberti, from whom our lane gets its name. In 1970 he parcelled it off from the larger lot he bought circa 1960; it stayed in the family until they sold it in 1998, and it has gone unused ever since — until now.
Ulster Savings Bank, Stone Ridge, NY, 2027, architect’s rendering.
The new development, a two-story office complex plus parking lot, shouldn’t affect us in any significant way. Traffic to and from it will enter and exit off Route 209, not the lane. It’s unlikely to have a negative effect on our property values; it’s a low-profile, unobtrusive structure. The bank representative in charge of the project has proven himself very accessible and concerned about the impact of its construction on the lives of the lane’s homeowners.
They broke ground in early January. From then through the end of March there was a fair amount of thumping and other low-pitched machine noise, tolerable at our distance from the site, plus a few half-days when the lane was blocked (with advance notice). Minimal inconvenience. Then they stopped to let things settle, planning to resume work after Labor Day. They expect to complete the exterior construction during the fall, install the interior over the winter, and open for business in the spring of 2027
As part of their plan they’re conserving a small wetland on the property, and have resurfaced the gravel on their stretch of the lane, definitely a welcome fringe benefit.
Apparently change is inevitable, even in this isolated pocket of rural upstate New York. Now the three private homes on the lane are bounded by a (forthcoming) bank/office complex on the north end, a hotel and restaurant (currently closed) on the east side, a commercial orchard and event venue to the south, and a methadone clinic plus food-sustainability tester to the west.
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•
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SPJ Research Award 2014
Straight Outta Stone Ridge: Small-Town Talk (4)
We also found the mostly eaten carcass and gnawed skeleton of a deer in the then-vacant lot at the head of our lane, which may have stumbled in and died there after getting hit by a vehicle on U.S. Route 209, a heavily trafficked two-lane blacktop to which our lane connects.
On the whole, our sightings of local fauna have decreased considerably over the past several years. The herd of roughly ten white-tailed deer that previously crossed our property on a regular basis disappeared last year, perhaps because construction work on the Lexington Center for Recovery, the new methadone clinic across the lane, disturbed them with its hustle and bustle and disrupted their usual route with their newly installed privacy fence.
However, from early last spring until now we have periodically sighted a small new herd — a young buck and two does — traversing our grounds. Taking advantage of undisputed territory, I suppose. We caught only glimpses of them over the winter, but their tracks reappeared regularly in the snow, so they’ve definitely incorporated our acre into their defined territory. Maybe they’ll show up soon with a spring crop of fawns in tow.
Keeping the Home Fires Burning
As a result of the clement fall weather, we had our baseboard heat turned off until late October. However, once we got it going we discovered that our 12-year-old propane boiler — combination baseboard heating and on-demand hot water for the north end of the house — had reached EOL status and begun giving up the ghost in the machine, complete with scary death rattles. It’s had problems ever since we bought the house, so, like Hemingway’s bankrupt protagonist, it failed “gradually and then suddenly.”
Fortunately, we caught this before the cold weather set in. It cost us an unexpected pretty penny, but we swiftly replaced it with a state-of-the-art Navien unit — roughly a third of the size of its Triangle Prestige predecessor but far more energy-efficient and fuel-saving, with a greater capacity to generate hot water for household use. It ran like a charm all winter.
For which we give thanks, because this winter went long, and hard. We didn’t need a consultation with Chuck Lamberti, the prognosticating rodent who inhabits our property, to expect six more weeks of it on Groundhog Day. We had multiple snow days starting from Christmas week, and snow/ice on the ground until early March — almost three solid months of it. Fortunately, our neighbors, a family just to the south on the lane, have to clear it with snow blower and shovels, so we get the benefit of their labors.
The Swiss architect Le Corbusier defined a private home as a “machine for living.” So this winter, just now ebbing, put our “machine for living” to the test. Which it passed with flying colors.
The various insulation and weatherization upgrades we achieved in spring 2024 definitely made the place warmer and draft-free. Neither Anna nor I thrive with the thermostat set at the recommended 68F daytimes and lower at night, so I cranked it up several degrees above that. As a result, I could walk around or sit at my desk comfortably while layered in long johns, shirt, sweater, and jeans. Of course this meant that we burned more fuel, but it was worth it. When the heating season ends we’ll still have some leftovers from our 2025 pre-buy. Helpful when we go to pre-buy next year’s fuel, at prices inflated by Trump’s mideast “excursion.”
•
T-Boned in Kingston
In another of life’s little adventures, in mid-January we found ourselves involved in a minor car accident. In a long line of vehicles crawling across an intersection in the nearby city of Kingston, we got T-boned by a black Kia that ran the red light there. I use the word “ran” advisedly, since, like us, the Kia also traveled at something like 3 mph. A slo-mo event that didn’t even shake us up — more a WTF moment.
However, it took an couple of hours to sort it out with the other driver, police, ambulance, fire department. We were unhurt, our car still drivable, but both passenger-side doors chewed up badly enough that our insurance company, State Farm, eventually declared it totaled.
They declared the other driver responsible, gave us fair market value for our 2016 Subaru Outback, and authorized a loaner for several weeks. However, sorting out the inspections and paperwork, waiting for the payout, and finding a replacement took much longer than that. So, for about a month during the deep winter, we had no transportation available. Made us realize how dependent we are on our vehicle, even though we don’t drive much, or very far.
Anyhow, now we have a 2021 Subaru Forester — slightly shorter, slightly taller. We gave thought to switching to an electric model (Subaru makes several), but didn’t; I’ve never driven one, and wasn’t ready for such a dramatic change. That was before Trump started his lunatic war with Iran, considerably upping the price of gas. In retrospect, I wish I’d considered that alternative more seriously.
•
Our Corporate Neighbors
When I last wrote about it, in March 2024, our new neighbor across the lane, the first Ulster County branch of the Lexington Center for Recovery, had yet to go into operation, due to several pending permits and certifications. Last fall this opioid-addiction treatment facility (commonly referred to as a methadone clinic) opened its doors for business, without fanfare. It occupies the lower level of what served formerly as the offices of a family medical practice group. (The upper level remains the headquarters of HowGood, “a SaaS data platform with the world’s largest database on food and personal care product sustainability.”)
The clinic opens daily at 6 a.m., so clients begin arriving (by car) shortly before that. By noon there’s hardly any activity there. I gather they’re gradually building their clientele for this location, so that traffic may increase over time. On the other hand, standard methadone treatment, which used to require daily dosages consumed on the spot in full view of a licensed practitioner, has evolved. Nowadays protocols allow stabilized patients up to 28 unsupervised take-home doses, which means they might visit the clinic just once a month.
My reservations notwithstanding, so far this dispensary’s operations have not troubled the waters in any way: no noise or disruptions, no visible presence of its clients in the neighborhood. That may change as the weather gets warmer, and I still find its location in a secluded section of a small town peculiar and inappropriate. But if my publicly expressed concerns prove unfounded I’ll owe them a public apology, which I’ll deliver.
•
Meanwhile, we have a new corporate neighbor, two lots to the north on the lane, right off Route 209. Ulster Savings Bank — a branch of which currently occupies a small building on the grounds of the Mytown Marketplace mini-mall just north of us — has finally broken ground for its new location on a previously vacant lot between Lamberti Lane and the Mytown complex.
This lot has sat vacant for years, even decades, as various plans for it have come and gone with an assortment of previous owners — including Sicilian mafioso Joseph Lamberti, from whom our lane gets its name. In 1970 he parcelled it off from the larger lot he bought circa 1960; it stayed in the family until they sold it in 1998, and it has gone unused ever since — until now.
Ulster Savings Bank, Stone Ridge, NY, 2027, architect’s rendering.
The new development, a two-story office complex plus parking lot, shouldn’t affect us in any significant way. Traffic to and from it will enter and exit off Route 209, not the lane. It’s unlikely to have a negative effect on our property values; it’s a low-profile, unobtrusive structure. The bank representative in charge of the project has proven himself very accessible and concerned about the impact of its construction on the lives of the lane’s homeowners.
They broke ground in early January. From then through the end of March there was a fair amount of thumping and other low-pitched machine noise, tolerable at our distance from the site, plus a few half-days when the lane was blocked (with advance notice). Minimal inconvenience. Then they stopped to let things settle, planning to resume work after Labor Day. They expect to complete the exterior construction during the fall, install the interior over the winter, and open for business in the spring of 2027
As part of their plan they’re conserving a small wetland on the property, and have resurfaced the gravel on their stretch of the lane, definitely a welcome fringe benefit.
Apparently change is inevitable, even in this isolated pocket of rural upstate New York. Now the three private homes on the lane are bounded by a (forthcoming) bank/office complex on the north end, a hotel and restaurant (currently closed) on the east side, a commercial orchard and event venue to the south, and a methadone clinic plus food-sustainability tester to the west.
•
•
Special offer: If you want me to either continue pursuing a particular subject or give you a break and (for one post) write on a topic — my choice — other than the current main story, make a donation of $50 via the PayPal widget below, indicating your preference in a note accompanying your donation. I’ll credit you as that new post’s sponsor, and link to a website of your choosing.
And, as a bonus, I’ll send you a signed copy of my new book, poetic license / poetic justice — published under my full name, Allan Douglass Coleman, which I use for my creative writing.